Betwixt
by RegretfulHero
Summary: Unconvinced by Harry that Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, Hermione takes it upon herself to confront him in the Room of Requirement and discovers the Vanishing Cabinet. [HBP Divergent - HG/DM]
1. Tom Riddle, he is not, Harry

**Betwixt**

_RegretfulPrince_

_.&._

_Summary:_

Unconvinced by Harry that Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, Hermione takes it upon herself to confront him in the Room of Requirement and discovers the Vanishing Cabinet.

.&.

"-Are you listening to me, Harry?"

No response. She knew he wasn't. _Of course, he wasn't._

Dark brows would knit together, and Hermione stared at him crisply across the library desk. Oh, sure, those tired green eyes of his were affixed to the book he held pointedly enough. Anyone walking by would think him positively _engrossed_, but she knew better. His eyes didn't flicker from one side of the page to the other and back again, as they would have, were he were actually _reading._

Instead, Harry was burning a hole in one particular spot, as if fixated upon a single word.

Indeed, she suspected he _was._

"Harry." She tried again, a little tersely now.

He hummed, and his green gaze flickered up from the book momentarily. He didn't quite manage to look at her, though. "Oh, er... Yeah, Hermione. Of course." He mused, still distracted.

She bristled, and her lips pressed together. "Harry," she said it slowly, patient, "You've already had one extension for this assignment. This is a ten scroll essay, you know." her finger tapped her quill expectantly.

"I know." He was flippant and benign. It was only because he felt the cold scaliness of her staring at him that he looked up at her again, and smiled almost nervously. "It'll be fine, Hermione. I'm further along than you think."

She sighed through her nose and grew quiet, and when he saw her look back to her own work, he waited a good few seconds just to be sure she'd dropped the subject for now. But, her brown eyes darted to his book as soon as he looked away, and with a sudden and almost serpentine haste, she lunged across the small table to snatch at its pages. Unprepared as he was for this, she found purchase, tearing away a loose piece of parchment. He jerked in his chair, shocked and evidently irritated by this, and stared at her as if she'd grown another head—he might've shouted in protest, she suspected, if not for Madam Pince.

Vindicated, Hermione peered down at her prize, straightening it out. The Marauder's map. She had figured as much. Tellingly, footsteps leading to that single, bold word he had been so focussed upon.

_Malfoy._

She held it up as if he'd been caught red-handed with contraband, and he had the decency to look equal parts frustrated and guilty.

"For goodness sake, Harry, _not _this again-"

"_Bloody hell," _drawled Ron, as he returned to the table from around a library stack, reluctantly cradling another book underarm as he shot Hermione a bewildered look. "Thought I just saw you tear a _page _out of a book, 'Mione," He said in fading disbelief, "Steady on."

"No, Ron, she's just tearing my head off," Harry muttered, ruffling unkempt hair wearily.

"Well, maybe I wouldn't have to, if you were actually _using_ it on any of your studies! _Honestly,_ Harry," she threw a hand up in a fit of pique, "Malfoy, this, Malfoy, that—This obsession has gone too far for how little you've got to show for it, Harry. You're falling behind, you're always so _distracted... _The only class you're actually ahead in is Potions, and we all know why _that_ is," her voice lowered disapprovingly. "You can't do that well in Potions, while on the other hand, turning in poor quality essays _late _in Herbology, Harry. The two subjects go hand in hand. You've even lost interest in _Quidditch,_ lately."

"True," Ron's brows rose and he waved a long finger in point, "And you know if _she's_ noticed, you really must be off it, mate." Merlin knew, Quidditch was just about the only subject guaranteed to have Hermione's eyes glaze over... and even then, she knew an odd amount of trivia about it. He wondered idly about the fact that, at some point, she must have subjected herself to reading up on the sport, despite her distaste. The only reason he could really think of as to why she'd punish herself so was, maybe, to keep up with him and Harry's conversations about it—not to be caught ignorant about something so present in their school life.

A little part of him dared to hope maybe she did it for _his_ sake, so she could at least feign interest in something important to him, and support his love of the game. She _did_ always come out to watch them play.

"For heaven's sake, Harry, you're team _Captain,"_ Hermione looked at him imploringly, but to Harry, it looked a lot more like pity.

"And I'm doing quite well for myself on that front, thanks." He frowned over his glasses at her, looking quite harassed now, and sighed. "Look. We've already been through this. Whatever I've got going on at the moment can wait. Malfoy is up to something big, and if I can't figure it out, Hermione, I just know people are going to get hurt. You haven't seen him this year in the light that I have. Since his dad got sent off to Azkaban, he's _changed, _and not for the better. You know, _he's lost interest _in Quidditch, too. You know how competitive he is. If everything was as it should be, he would've jumped at the chance to bully Urquhart out of it when the Captaincy came up. But he hasn't even been turning up to the games. I've heard he's _paying _Harper to fill in for him._"_

"Well, he's been sick, hasn't he? Look at the state of him," Ron added, lazily avoiding being caught in the middle of them—this argument had happened a few times now. The redhead had decided it was easier to remain neutral. "He's almost as pale as Nearly Headless Nick, these days. Saw that bulldog Pansy trying to feed him slices of apple the other day," he shook his head, grimacing, "Morbid, that was. He just kept staring off into the distance with this dazed look, while she tried mashing fruit into his face."

"Has he stopped eating?" Hermione furrowed brows at the Weasley, and he shrugged loosely.

"If my girlfriend looked like that, I'd lose my appetite, too." He sniffed, and Hermione rolled her eyes—really, Lavender wasn't all that much better, she thought, but immediately felt bad for it.

Ron seemed oblivious to this, though, and shrugged at Harry then. "So, the slimy git is miserable. His old man is in prison and he has to deal with Pansy following him around almost as much as you, mate. He didn't make it into that fancy Slug club, because he's probably rotten at potions without Snape's arse to kiss... He's probably just planning to blackmail somebody. That doesn't prove he's a _Death Eater,_ he's just getting some korma back."

"_Karma,_ Ron." Hermione corrected with kind patience. "Korma is a type of curry."

"But they're both Indian, yeah?"

Harry huffed, giving up on the pretence of his studies and snapping his book shut to toss it lightly onto the table. "I really don't see why this is such a stretch to either of you," green eyes flicked angrily between them. "Even Ron's dad agrees with me, after that incident with Malfoy and Snape. It _proves_ he's planning something-"

"But it _doesn't _prove he's doing it on Voldemort's orders, Harry. He has _plenty_ of reason to be petty on his own. Again, he's _sixteen, _and his father should now be in disgrace. But it's _Malfoy," _she almost snorted, "He's a petulant, self absorbed brat who can barely bumble his way though his _own_ jealous, angry little schemes, let alone be trusted with anything _serious._"

She dismissed the frown Harry wore, and careful not to damage the map she still held, started to count off on her fingers.

"Malfoy, who once dobbed us in for being out after dark, without even stopping to realise that _he_ was going to get detention for being out, as well. Malfoy, who shamelessly _bought_ his way onto a Quidditch team, to save his bruised ego, despite the fact that he's a capable flyer and probably could've earned a spot _properly_ by his third year. Malfoy, who milked a cut on his arm for _weeks,_ and threw a fit to get poor Hagrid tossed out, only to cover the fact that he humiliated himself in class. Malfoy, who dogged our 'DA' meetings relentlessly, unable to gather even a shred of evidence himself, until he had to _forcibly_ pry it out of somebody. Malfoy, who sat up in his dorm for what must have been hours doing advanced, individual spellwork on handmade buttons that said 'Potter Stinks'. Malfoy, who ran off harmlessly with his tail between his legs, because I slapped him for being horrible. Tom Riddle, he is _not, _Harry._"_

"You can't dismiss what we saw at Knockturn Alley, Hermione," Harry pressed her, for what felt like the umpteenth time, "And I know you're going to say we didn't see anything, but we didn't _have to. _It all lines up. You said so yourself, about Fenrir Greyback. There's no other way. Malfoy wouldn't make an empty threat to Borgin that smoothly. He's a coward when he doesn't think he's got the winning hand." He scoffed a little, gesturing at her broadly. "How much more evidence do you _need?_ A few years back_,_ you were totally convinced he was the Heir of Slytherin, for _much_ less than this-_"_

"_Exactly," _She inclined her head to peer at him, holding up her finger in point. "We all were. And we were completely wrong. We jumped to conclusions, Harry, without looking at _all_ the facts, because it was convenient to assume and we all disliked him intensely." Hermione shook her head, bushy hair swaying lightly, and she held up the map to tap at Malfoy's name. "Spying on Malfoy's footsteps on a map, suspicious of every little pit stop he makes in the castle, is not reasonable or _objective,_ Harry. You're looking for what you want to see, because it's _convenient,_ and it's distracting you from everything else."

Harry was staring at her with this odd look plastered on his features, a mixture of being somehow offended and maybe very uncomfortable with what she was saying, but _pensive. _His mouth was drawn thin and he looked immensely dissatisfied. His fingers drummed a round on the table, and green gaze held brown hostage, incredulous and at his wit's end with this argument. Ron was glancing between the two of them, unsure of what to make of the tension, and using all this distraction to slyly peek at Hermione's notes, occasionally jotting something down.

"Alright," Finally, Harry relented, with a slight wag of his jaw. He took a long breath, glancing away for a moment as he adjusted his glasses. "Alright, fine, Hermione. You're right." It didn't sound as though he was actually conceding, though, so Hermione expected what came next. "Since you seem to think I'm too close to this, and I'll give you credit enough to think you're not making the same mistake as the Ministry," he said slowly, careful with his words as he licked his lip, "What _can _we reasonably assume he showed Borgin, in light of everything we've seen, if _not_ a Dark Mark?"

Harry's brows rose a little, almost in the same way Hermione's did when she was inviting somebody to prove themselves wrong, Ron thought. A rare sight, but unmistakable.

Hermione was silent for a small time, glancing down at herself to tug at her vest once, idly. An ineffectual straightening, or some sort of small preening gesture. As a matter of fact, she had already given this matter some thought, but not having a great deal of evidence—no more than Harry, really, she thought—she hadn't yet bothered to bring it up.

"Well, I did think—It's nothing concrete," she warned, almost apologetically.

"Come on, 'Mione," Ron encouraged lightly, knowing full well the little tic that betrayed she did have a counter theory cooked up. "Might as well just have out with it."

She felt a little foolish as she began, but rolling her shoulders in surrender, she did as Ron advised.

"Oh, alright... Look. Malfoy said to Borgin that Fenrir Greyback was a close family friend, didn't he? That doesn't imply that he's taking _orders_ from Draco, just that they're affiliated. We know very well Malfoy has threatened people with his supposed connections before, often exaggerating them. But, suppose what Malfoy showed Borgin was actually evidence of his connection to Greyback, _personally. _A scratch, or worse, a _bite mark." _

She let that linger for a moment, and saw Harry's brows knit together slightly. Even Ron seemed to be following, if the glint in his eye was anything to go by. She held her hand up to continue, as if swearing an oath.

"Now think about what was overheard between Malfoy and Snape, with that in mind. What if the 'master' they're talking about actually _is _Greyback? We _know_ he's not above targeting children, and he actively spreads his affliction to others. Voldemort may not have any interest in taking on Malfoy just yet, but Fenrir just might be willing to take advantage... especially without Lucius there to stop it. Snape said he was trying to help him. It's not too much of a stretch to think that a _potions master, _who is also his Head of House and has apparently made an unbreakable vow to Malfoy's mother to protect him, might just be feeding him Wolfsbane?"

Ron had this look on his face as if she'd just solved the greatest mystery of all time, and perhaps it was comforting to see him seemingly take so quickly to her own suspicion, though she had a feeling he might. Ron had been as disinclined to believe Malfoy was a Death Eater as she had been. Ron actually seemed to find the idea even more laughable than she did, really, though he had noted difficulty not taking what Harry said at face value, either. Ronald weasley seemed to trust both of his friends rather implicitly, and didn't really seem too sure what side of the fence he'd wanted to be on, this time.

Though, at least Ron did consistently agree that Malfoy—while probably not a Death Eater—did seem _absolutely miserable._

"You think he's a bloody _werewolf?" _the redhead's eyes were wide, and an odd amusement had etched itself onto his freckled face.

She frowned at him lightly. "It's a bit fantastical, Ronald, yes. But no more so than Harry's theory, based on the same evidence."

Ron puffed out a cheek and let the air go again quickly, shaking his head bemusedly. "That's _mental._ Malfoy, a werewolf..." He looked up at Harry, then, almost eagerly, "D'you think he might be, Harry? He could've done it on purpose, even, lying low until the time is right... maybe that's what he's planning. To transform and attack... muggleborns? Maybe even _you,_ Harry."

Harry Potter did not look so easily swayed, though he was almost scowling in his consideration of it. He looked genuinely troubled by this, admittedly plausible, new idea. As he sat there, raking it over in his head and trying to use what he had seen and heard to poke a hole in the theory, Harry found, rather frustratingly, that maybe it did hold some water.

Reluctantly, he grimaced. "Snape did mention something about Malfoy needing to go to his office, when he told him to. Said he was being careless, wandering alone at night... Malfoy said he had others who could assist him, and accused Snape of trying to 'steal his glory'." just as he conceded that much, he shook his head again. "I don't know. Even if Hermione's right, what difference does it really make? If Malfoy's working for Fenrir, and Fenrir's working for Voldemort anyway—he's always been to proud of being a Pureblood. Why would _he_ ever allow himself to be bitten willingly? What, just because his dad's in Azkaban and he has a score to settle? That doesn't make sense."

"Maybe he was bitten as a punishment," offered Ron, then, "You know... _because _his dad went to Azkaban. It does explain a bit why he looks so ill and... Well, depressed, really. But then to turn around and use it against _us..._ might be enough to prove himself to you-know-who, and be taken a little more seriously."

"My point is, in either case, it's _dangerous _to just ignore him." Harry concluded, without actually having to accept anything. "If anything, this just _proves _I'm not being overly paranoid about this. Either he's a Death Eater, with the _mark,_ or he's a werewolf, who answers to Greyback _at least."_

"A_gain_, Harry," Hermione sighed lengthily, "I've just told you, there's as little proof to my theory as there is to yours, right now. I was just trying to illustrate how ambiguous everything is so far, and how you can't be _sure what it means. _When you have a hypothesis, Harry, you need to take measures to _disprove it, _not-"

"I'm not going to let this go, Hermione." Harry cut her off tiredly, and started to gather up his things, evidently having had enough of the discussion for now. "I can't. This is _important. _If you're not going to take this seriously, fine, but can we _please_ skip the lectures, next time?"

Hermione visibly deflated as he held out his hand for the map, giving her a look that seemed almost dejected, though it was edged in his worries and frustrations still. She had wanted to help him, when all this began... Truly, she was just a little worried about him, and that he was too caught up in all this, he might fall too far behind, or worse, be missing more _important things _in the bigger picture of it all. She understood the suspicions of Malfoy, truly she did, but she just felt it was too easy, like a red herring purposely arranged to throw him off the track.

She glanced down at the map as she held it gingerly in her hands, following Malfoy's footsteps. He was on the move again. She knew if she gave it back to Harry, stalking Malfoy was all he'd end up achieving for the night. He needed to study... Hell, Harry needed to _sleep,_ from the look of him. Maybe it was partly her fault, but he did look exhausted.

Guiltily, she sighed. "I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to exacerbate things. It's just—" She pressed her lips together and thought on it, lifting her brown eyes back up to meet green.

"It's just that you don't believe me." Harry said thinly.

She winced. _Ron winced. _But Hermione held the map against her chest possessively then, deciding what she had to do.

"I _do _want to help, Harry. _Really._ I might not necessarily agree with your suspicions, but you trying to keep track of him on your own is clearly taking its toll. That's all I meant." She smiled faintly at him, sorry. "Look, you really do need to catch up on your work... Why don't you let me watch him for a while?"

He eyed her warily through his glasses, but Hermione insisted.

"You said earlier... I haven't seen the same side of him that you have, this year. If it's really that important to you, I was just doing some extra credit work—Lend me your cloak and _I'll_ go and tail Malfoy, for a while. Maybe I'll change my mind after I've watched him for a bit, like you have been."

For a few moments, she honestly considered he might turn her down anyway, but slowly, she saw Harry's expression soften. His mouth ticked, but he offered her a nod. "Alright. You tail Malfoy, and I'll finish my essay... But _just_ for tonight. I'll tell you what I've learned about his habits, so far."

"I'll go with you-" said Ron, moving to stand from his chair.

"No, you won't, Ronald. It'll be safer if I go alone, and besides, you've already done the essay and you still have the notes I gave you. You can work Harry though the same points... Never mind the fuss Lavender will put up, if her _Won-won _goes sneaking off into the night with me under an _invisibility_ _cloak,_ of all things."

Ron winced again. "R-right... Yeah. Of course."

She swore she could hear earnest disappointment in his voice, as they all gathered up their things, and headed for their tower.


	2. Why are you like this?

2

Why are you like this?

.&. 

The level of detail Harry went into was almost absurd.

Admittedly, perhaps Hermione had not paid more attention to it all, because of her hope that Harry would give up on a clear dead end. But as he had given her the invisibility cloak in the common room, whispering all sorts of maddened things to her in great tones of conspiracy, Hermione had little other choice than to double her concern.

He sounded like he was absolutely _losing it._

The things he was saying didn't seem to add up at all; a veritable hodge podge of things that, on the surface, seemed very unrelated. _Odd..._ but unrelated. Harry had followed him up stairwells, through empty corridors. He had watched that map at night in the dormitories, and he had watched it as he'd done earlier, hidden behind the guise of homework. He swore to her that there were times he was certain Malfoy had taken long leaves of absence from the Hogwarts grounds, but when asked after, always seemed to have been spotted recently. He spoke of the odd coterie of people Malfoy had apparently been keeping of late—he'd overheard some of the girls in Slytherin talking before class.

Apparently, Malfoy had been spotted talking to a couple of younger girls earlier that day,_ first or second years _by the look of them, behind Pansy's back. Harry hadn't actually _seen_ him as yet with anyone out of the ordinary, admittedly, but the rumour wasn't to be ignored.

Hermione, quite frankly, didn't see how a couple of first year girls fawning over Draco Malfoy—which wasn't entirely uncommon, given his wealth and Pureblood status—could even relate to any of this.

Still, she gave Harry her assurances, and did as she promised him for the night.

Sufficed to say, very little of interest happened. Not that she'd expected very much. She had caught a shock of blond hair leaving Snape's office, getting there just a little too late to catch anything of their conversations. For a while, she followed behind the Slytherin, perhaps a good fifteen feet or so behind him, wrapped in the invisibility cloak and observing him quietly.

It wasn't something she'd ever really intended to do—examine Draco Malfoy this way. But her mind turned to the conversation earlier, how he'd not been eating much, and how he seemed sickly. She felt she had to agree.

Malfoy had always been pale, but never quite so... _colourless._ There was indeed a ghostliness to him, as Ron had said, and in far more than just his looks.

Malfoy had always had a very deliberate sort of swagger, like he thought he very much owned the place, or that the coming ground should be honoured to feel his footsteps. Now, though, as Hermione shuffled along quietly in his wake, she noticed that his stride had changed, and become far less sure of itself. He drifted through the corridors as if he wasn't quite sure where he was going, turning randomly at points to take odd routes. And while this could've simply been for him trying to avoid running into anyone, he was also hastier, almost _twitchy,_ as if he could feel her eyes upon his back and _knew_ that he was being followed.

She almost rolled her eyes. Well, of course, he probably did know. Harry probably _thought_ himself very sly, but he could have the subtlety of a brick, sometimes. With as doggedly as he'd begun to suspect Malfoy, lately, Hermione could only imagine the little slips he'd made to tip the blond off.

She instantly retracted such a thought, though, when Malfoy suddenly spun on his heel, steely grey eyes flashing as they seemed to land impossibly upon her. She froze, feeling her heart skip—he couldn't _see _her, could he? Had she been walking too loudly, had the toes of her shoes accidentally brushed past the hem of the cloak?

She held her breath, impossibly still, as he stared her way, but mercifully, she saw his gaze flicker. The Slytherin's gaze darted about the space, settling once upon every shadow, every nook and cranny that could hide somebody, his hands flexing in and out of fists at his sides.

_Merlin, _he looked awful. Like he hadn't slept at all. He was thinner than normal, even she could tell, which made his features seem more pointed than usual and gave him a sort of severe crispness. There were faint smudges of darkness under his eyes, and she swore she saw him tremble as he started backwards slowly, still incredulous even as he finally turned to keep walking.

When Hermione exhaled, she felt an odd relief wash over her, but she wasn't entirely certain why. It wasn't as if he frightened her. Not in the least. But perhaps it was something about the starkness of him, and the desperately paranoid glint in his eyes, that did work to unnerve her some.

Harry was right about one thing—Malfoy was certainly _different,_ now that his father had fallen from grace.

She seriously doubted, with him in this kind of mood, that she'd catch him out in anything untoward. To Harry's chagrin, she didn't, though she followed Malfoy dutifully until he'd retired to the dungeons for sleep. To appease her friend, though, Hermione told him of Malfoy's secret meeting with Snape, and this seemed enough to send Harry on a small tangent, wondering if Malfoy had actually given in to his teacher's offer of 'help', and what it all meant concerning Snape and a possible 'double-double-crossing', as he put it.

Hermione benignly pointed out the full moon wasn't too far off, and that 'double-double-crossing' was not actually a thing.

But Harry seemed to ignore this, carefully, quite like Hermione ignored the fact that Lavender Brown had draped herself across Ron's lap on a lounge in the common room.

.&.

Despite very little turning up, 'just for tonight' turned very quickly into more, and over the coming weeks, Hermione and Harry had fallen into a silent agreement around his workload—when he was free, he could hunt Malfoy. When he wasn't, Hermione would at least take the Marauder's Map to check it periodically, so that it didn't pose too much distraction for him.

Ronald was, unfortunately, far too attached to Lavender by the hip to do anybody any good, at the moment. Hermione didn't mind this as much as she thought she might. Oh, certainly, she disliked the fact _intensely,_ but this business of helping Harry track Malfoy was a far better distraction than Cormac had proven to be, and it kept a comfortable distance between her and Ron enough that they were civil when they did see one another.

She did note, however, that Ron was at his most congenial in the evenings, when they were studying. Almost to the point of normality, again, but always short lived... and for the moment, she could cope with that. She despised that Ron's immature cold shouldering could lessen here and there, and too forgiving, she would find herself oddly soothed by it. She wanted to be angrier about it, but in truth, she missed him. She missed how things had been before Ginny had gone off on him like she had, and before Hermione had entertained Krum, and before Lavender had come stumbling in on everything. It was unfair, that he had that power, and barely even seemed to recognise it.

But perhaps he was only trying to convey, from his suffocated place in Lavender's crushing hold, how it had felt for him to watch her dance with another, and the threat of life moving on without their friendship enduring. That a friend, no matter how long held, could find themselves displaced by romances and new interests. And perhaps he had felt that way, with Harry, and her, and even Ginny, and feared being so left behind.

She just wished he didn't have to be such an _arse_ about it. For once, it would've been nice if he could've just been honest with himself, instead of dragging them all through some sorry _mistake,_ first.

Still... This, too, would pass. And when it did, she knew, she would forgive him for it. She just wanted it over with, now.

Ronald wasn't the only one in a strained relationship for show, it seemed.

"—need to tell them I was with _you,_ Draco, or I could be _sanctioned," _said the waspish tone of Pansy, hushed from around the corner as she came up on their position on the map.

Nestled in a small vestibule that lead to the stairs, she and Draco seemed to be in a heated little spat—or rather, Pansy seemed heated. Draco looked fairly bored, or perhaps only mildly inconvenienced, for having just been accosted by Parkinson as she had come out of the stairwell. Still cloaked, Hermione leaned against the stone archway, curious at this rare glimpse of them alone together.

"If I recall correctly, Pansy, you _weren't_ with me." Draco offered flatly, as if that was the end of it.

"Only because _you_ never showed up! Where even were you?" She demanded in a huff, but Draco frowned at her harshly.

"That's none of your business," he said at first, but sensing how defensive this seemed, settled into murmuring more quietly, "Look, I was... I shoved some snot-nosed Hufflepuff kid for getting underfoot and got written up for it. I was stuck polishing trophies all night. Happy?"

"I guess that does explain why you weren't at dinner..." she muttered bitterly, seeming to accept this excuse, if only barely. She snorted, and Hermione felt this only emphasised the puggish nature of her nose. "But that doesn't help _me_, Draco. The only reason I'm in trouble at all is because your _stupid_ friend Goyle _obviously_ needs glasses! It's _your_ fault that I wasn't in the common room, so unless you _vouch_ for me, how am I supposed to prove that it wasn't _me_?"

Almost cruelly, given her evident distress, the blonde smirked at her with a slightly amused little scoff. "I can't vouch for you if I was in _detention,_ you idiot."

"But you could tell Snape where I _was,_ and that you were on your way to meet me—" she pleaded, and looked so suddenly crestfallen when his smirk grew into this awful little grin. Hermione almost felt sorry for her.

Malfoy postured slightly, shifting his weight to his left leg, and pocketing his heads as he offered her an unsympathetic look. His tongue flicked out to wet his bottom lip, like a snake, Hermione thought, and she frowned under her cloak.

"Come off it, Pans," he drawled, his irritation suspiciously absent now, "Breaking into Snape's potion supplies... right around a disappointing Valentine's day, no less?" He shook his head and tutted. "Never took you for a Love Potion sort of girl."

"_What?" _she was aghast, her normally beady eyes wide like he'd slapped her.

Malfoy dismissed her coolly. "I thought it was a bit strange... your new obsession with trying to feed me all the time. Trying to dose me up?" He shook his head, "Pathetic, Pansy. Really, you've _outdone_ yourself."

"_It wasn't me, Draco!"_ She seethed through her teeth viciously, and Hermione grimaced at the way the cords on Parkinson's neck stood out in her anger. "Whoever the _hell_ your two goons saw, it was _somebody else! _Just because _you_ no longer care about being a prefect, doesn't mean that _I don't!_ Even if I did want Love Potion—and I don't—why would I go to all that trouble when I could just _buy_ one?"

While the idea of Pansy stealing supplies to make a Love Potion was certainly something Hermione found believable in motivation, there were two things that didn't quite sit right with her here.

Pansy was no rising Potioneer. In fact, if not for Snape's Slytherin grading biases, Hermione very much doubted that the girl could actually pass on her own merit. A spoiled snob like her really _would _just take the easy way out and buy one... Draco, however, actually did fairly well in potions. Well enough, in fact, that Hermione thought—if not for his awful views and his parental associations—Professor Slughorn very likely _would_ have involved him in the Slug Club.

Merlin knew, it was probably the only thing besides flying and being horrid that Malfoy was actually any _good_ at.

The second little thing was, oddly, that Malfoy—who had been irritable with her a few moments beforehand—now seemed to be almost smug. She supposed this could be accounted for in the... _questionable flattery_ that it was, to assume she'd want to ensnare his attentions more wholly via magic. Sure, Malfoy's twisted sense of ego could certainly take that as a compliment, she supposed. But Hermione couldn't help but wonder why he wouldn't be more angry with her, especially if Pansy really _was_ guilty, since that would mean that she not only tried to _manipulate_ his affections, probably to the effect of very public and embarrassing displays, but that she also tried to wriggle out of consequence by getting him to _cover_ for her when caught.

Both of those things sounded very Slytherin to Hermione, really. Who knew, maybe Malfoy _appreciated_ that sort of... lack of ethics in a girl.

Even so, she couldn't shake the sinking feeling that Pansy really was telling the truth.

"You don't believe me, do you?" She asked him after a small silence had elapsed, and Malfoy's almost content look hadn't faded in the slightest.

"No." He purred, as if the sound were delicious on his tongue. "Why would I? Why would _anyone? _It's no secret, how desperate you are to hitch a ride on my coat tails. You'd do just about _anything,_ wouldn't you? Cut yourself a tidy slice of the Malfoy fortune, fresh out of school. Trophy wife to one of the up and coming—"

"That's not true! You _know _that's not true!" She protested loudly, and Hermione though she saw Pansy's eyes getting glassy. "Why do you _always_ do this, now? Why are you_ being like this?"_

"Because I don't have the time for meaningless _distractions-" _Malfoy hissed back, losing his amusement very quickly now that she'd started down this track. He soured quick enough for Hermione to suspect they had done this before.

"Ever since you got that fucking assignment, Draco, you've just started cutting everybody out! Talking down to us, and acting like you're _so_ fucking special," her voice broke a little, and she stamped her foot, getting louder as her emotions started to run away with her as she spat viciously. "What do you think you're going to be, their fucking _Anti-Potter—" _

Hermione gasped louder than she should've when Malfoy's hand struck Pansy's shoulder hard, knocking her back in a rough shove against the wall, enough for her to hit the back of her head against stone. Under the cloak, she let her hand clutch at her wand with tense urgency. She didn't _like_ Pansy. Not in the slightest. But if he was going to lash out at her _violently,_ Harry be damned, Hermione had a good mind to hex him down the bloody stairs. She didn't know their dynamic; she didn't _know_ if this was normal for them, or how far it could go.

Thankfully, nothing more happened that needed her intervention, and judging by the shell-shocked stillness of Pansy and the horrified look of disbelief on her face, this wasn't common place. Even Malfoy looked a bit rattled by what he'd just done, a moment of pale fearfulness or something like it ghosting across his features, before he seemed to gather himself. Before Pansy had much room to notice the change, the blond had affected an almost unstable sort of sneer, and stepped menacingly toward her.

"_Never," _he smouldered maliciously, pointing a long finger between their faces, "Compare me to that _filth_ again."

He left her then like she was nothing to him, slumped against the wall, and Hermione silently applauded the effort it took for Pansy to hold back her tears long enough for him to be out of earshot. Tearing away from the stone as she started to break down, Pansy very nearly bumped into the invisible Hermione as she went by, no doubt headed for the girl's lavatories to shake it all off.

Her mind was still taken up with trying to turn their fight about in her head, making what sense she could of its peculiarities, when she arrived at the Gryffindor common room to be immediately beset by an anxious looking Neville.

"We've been looking everywhere for you, Hermione," he said, sounding oddly out of breath.

"What? Why? Neville, what on Earth—"

"It's Ron," he said, and the name hit her chest like he'd just thrown a brick. "Got a note from Harry, he says they're in the infirmary,"

She stared at him, not unlike Pansy had looked at Draco minutes beforehand, and Neville continued.

"He's been _poisoned_, Hermione—"

She _ran._


	3. Newly Grown Fangs

3

Newly Grown Fangs

.&.

Hermione still felt like her innards weren't quite sitting right, after such a scare.

Her voice felt a little scratchy, not just from how silent she had been since she'd first been told about Ron, what with the shock of it all, but also from the lump of dread and worry that had been lodged in her throat. They had been kept out, waiting at the doors for hours. Harry had told her what had happened, but every time she heard him repeat it to the next person to come along—Fred, George, even Hagrid—it seemed more and more surreal to her.

Ron had come so perilously close to death. If Harry didn't just so happen to have the Prince's notes to remind him... if he didn't just so happen to flip to that page in time enough to grab that Bezoar. If Slughorn hadn't been humoured enough to accept it as his answer. If he hadn't put it in in that drawer, and if Harry hadn't acted as quickly as he did, given Slughorn clearly forgot about it.

_So many things. _So many things had to align for Ron to make it, after drinking that poisoned mead.

Were it anyone else, they would _absolutely_ have perished.

Having finally left Ron to rest, she felt physically and emotionally drained; too much so to be scurrying down a hall this quickly, while the echo of Filch and Hagrid's spat chased them. She and Harry ducked Peeves as he flew enthusiastically to the source of commotion, and only then did they slow down some, for knowing he would give more than enough distraction to the incensed squib.

She shook her head as they rounded a corner, her hair even bushier than normal for her frazzled nerves, and Harry shot her a sympathetic look.

"Sorry I didn't try to come and find you earlier, Hermione—"

"It's fine, Harry, you couldn't have known where to even start," she dismissed easily, her voice still soft to stop the scratch. "And it's not as if it would've made much difference. I would've been made to wait, anyway."

"Still," Harry rubbed the back of his neck, looking just as wild and sleepless as she did as he trailed off.

For a small while, their steps were rhythmically timed within the corridor, echoing off of stone with a steady sort of sound that reminded Hermione awfully of a ticking clock. She couldn't stand it, deciding it was all far too loud. _Far too pressing. _She thought back to what Hagrid said of the Board of Governors, and the possibility of Hogwarts being shut down, and she felt as if her throat were full of broken glass.

"What were you saying earlier? Before Mrs. Weasley—?" Harry probed lightly, and she could feel the edge in his voice. He wanted so badly to apportion blame and retribution for this. "About these attacks, I mean. Do you think it's the same person?"

_Do you think it's Malfoy? _She knew what he was really asking.

"I was just saying that they seem to be connected, Harry." She dodged it very lightly. "They're similar, in the way they've been... well, a little clumsy in _execution,_ I think—" A pause. "No pun intended."

Hermione's lips pursed and she let herself glance at him, hoping to see his profile. No luck. Green eyes were fixed upon her, his face turned toward her, expectant. Not even the faintest quirk of his lips at her accidental joke.

"It's like I said about Professor Slughorn." She continued, carefully. "Poisoning a bottle that he had only _considered_ giving to Dumbledore is a shot in the dark. That's the sort of thing you overhear in passing, at best. It's not the sort of thing anyone who knows him would bet on. There's no guarantee for pay off, and really, with what _he's_ like, it was far more likely to end up killing Slughorn, than anyone. We all know he probably only said as much to look charitable. That's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect him to buy for _himself."_

"So you _do_ think it's probably the same person, then, cutting corners?" Harry pressed, his expression very nearly pleading with her to say yes, but the hard line of his mouth told her he'd already decided. Before she could really address that, though, his brows furrowed. "How was Malfoy, last night? Anything suspicious to you?"

In the wake of it all, honestly, the fight she'd witnessed between Draco and Pansy had slipped well into the back of her mind.

"Oh. Yes, actually, now that you mention it," She hesitated, frowning as she tried to bring the details forth from her memory more clearly. "He was being utterly vile to Pansy Parkinson, near the stairwells... shoved her into a _wall,_ Harry."

His brows shot up over his glasses. "He _shoved _her?" She couldn't tell if this was slight disbelief or slight outrage. "Aren't they... you know... _Together?"_

"I think they _were. _Though if Pansy has an ounce of sense at all, I should expect they're finished now."

She grimaced lightly, "They'd only just crossed paths for a minute or so, when I got to them. From what I could gather, somebody broke into Snape's potions supplies, the other night. Apparently, Goyle said it was _Pansy_, and now she's likely to get sanctioned for it, being a Prefect, as you know. Malfoy was supposed to be meeting her somewhere at the time, but he claimed he had detention. Polishing trophies."

"What night was this?" He squinted at the ground, seemingly sorting through his own tracking of Malfoy's wherabouts to see if this excuse were true.

"I'm not sure, Harry. But he told her he couldn't vouch for her, and practically laughed in her face about it all." Her mouth ticked as she thought back on how affronted Pansy had been. "He turned it around and accused her of trying to spike him with a Love Potion."

Harry ticked on this for a while, the premise of that accusation—like Hermione had initially thought—making sense at face value. The way he managed to look puzzled and miffed at the same time made him look a little older than he really was, and though he was frowning, it suited him somehow. It loosely reminded Hermione of a Noir detective, like the sort you might find stylised on the slightly dog eared cover of a slim novella, hidden away in a Muggle's second hand book store.

"Why would _Goyle _dob Pansy in, though? If he even _thought_ that it was her, when he saw someone sneaking in, I mean," His nose crinkled in a way that made his glasses slide down some, "Why wouldn't he just say it was somebody else? Why say anything, at all?"

After a moment, he frowned at her to add, "What was he doing there, anyway? What, he just happened by at that time? What about Crabbe?"

Hermione shrugged some, beginning to worry this would become a bit more like an interrogation, now. "I don't know, Harry, they—It's not like I got _every_ detail down," she sighed lightly, "I mean, yes, I suppose it's safe to assume they were together. But they were probably just looking for Malfoy, thinking he'd gone to Snape's office again."

Harry's hands were pocketed then as his brow twitched. He seemed a little frustrated with that explanation, but he did concede some to a considered thought. "Maybe he did it on purpose. If Pansy loses her prefect privileges, then she can't follow Malfoy around as much, either. She seems like the clingy sort."

Hermione hadn't actually considered this, and blinking up at Harry, she mused. "Maybe. That's a thought... Pansy was adamant that it wasn't her, though. She got really upset about it, Harry. I think it _really might've been_ somebody else."

Harry shrugged. "She was probably just upset to get caught out, trying to slip him a potion. Think about it, Hermione. All it would really take is Malfoy getting somebody to suggest she could get Love Potion ingredients from under Snape's nose, and then setting her up to get caught. The second she gets dropped as a Prefect, she's out of his hair."

"But Pansy said to him herself;" Hermione noted, "Why wouldn't she just _buy one?"_

"Humiliating enough, to need to use one on your own _boyfriend,"_ Harry pitied, "You think she'd subject herself to _paying Fred and George_ for the privilege, on top of that? Besides... Knowing it was for Malfoy, they'd probably sell her a Draft of Flatulence, with the label switched. Even _she'd_ know that."

It took her a few more steps, but like the bolt shaped scar on his beautiful head, something he said struck her mind like lightning. She physically slowed mid stride, her mouth parting with eureka, and wide brown eyes turned his way while the spark still burned bright within them.

She's out of his hair.

_Hair._

"_Harry," _she breathed, with that urgent, airless way she had when an idea was ready to burst out, "What if Malfoy was using Polyjuice potion to _frame_ Pansy?"

He stopped walking beside her so that he could turn and focus on her fully, feeling the click within him almost audibly. "... So, he _was_ lying about the detention. I _knew_ it. I mean, he had to be, we would've _noticed—"_

"Yes!" She agreed, "He must've told Pansy to meet him somewhere and then stood her up on purpose, so he could break into the stores with Crabbe and Goyle. She probably wouldn't have told anyone where she was going... it was probably somewhere out of the way so she wasn't _seen, _while he was off pretending to be _her, _so she couldn't have an alibi!"

Hermione almost winced in sympathy, "Oh, Merlin, she probably thought it was a _date,_ or something, that evil little—"

Even _Pansy_ deserved better than that.

"Harry," She refocused upon him, bringing up her hands assertively, "Is there _any_ way we can get our hands on the report of what ingredients were stolen?"

"Do you think he might be getting ready to make more poison?" Harry asked, and his fists clenched with the want to hunt the ferret down and punch him, "He's _got_ to be the one behind these accidents, Hermione_—_The bastard could've _killed _Ron! And Katie's _still _at St. Mungo's," he huffed in place, unsure of a current outlet for his anger.

"Look, let's not get too ahead of ourselves," Hermione soothed, trying to settle him back into rationality by settling her hands on his shoulders lightly, "You were right. Malfoy's been up to _something,_ but there's nothing yet to suggest this has _anything to do _with the awful things that've happened. I know you want somebody to blame for what happened to Ron, but—"

"Oh, come _on, _Hermione!"

He pulled away from her with an almost pained noise, his jaw clenched tightly as he swung a hand up through his tussled mess of hair. He looked as if he were two steps away from beating his head against a wall. He reeled around on the spot as if there were a storm raging inside of him, flashing her the most desperate look of pique, "I'm telling you, he's a _Death Eater!"_

"_Or a werewolf," _She held her finger up scoldingly to remind him, and he looked like he could've collapsed. "...Potentially." She opened her hand, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Harry heaved a slow, exasperated sigh through his nose as he stood there for a long moment, collecting himself. His hand shot up to slither under his glasses, and he pinched the bridge of his nose hard, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. _"Unbelievable."_

Hermione cleared her throat gently, still feeling the scratchiness creeping back into her voice. She tugged at her sleeve. "Well... He's evidently made a batch of Polyjuice Potion once, already. The most likely answer is that he's done this before; broken into the supplies, I mean. He may be going back for more. To make a second batch. We won't know _what _he's trying to make unless we can _see_ that report, and until we _do,_ Harry, all you've got is conjecture."

She saw his head shaking, and watched his mouth twist reluctantly, but finally his hand fell away and he looked to have regained some modicum of patience.

"Okay, Hermione. _Alright."_ He drew a long breath to steady himself, "Let me think..."

She smiled at him, faintly but warmly, proud of his restraint. She knew this wasn't easy for him, but somebody had to keep giving his Malfoy obsession a little pull upon the reigns, every now and then.

Harry seemed hesitant to tell her but, finally, settled on a plan. "I'll just... I'll summon Kreacher a little later on and see if I can't trick him into getting a hold of it, quietly."

Her smile vanished rather instantaneously, melting off her face entirely to be replaced by a look of affront. "Harry! You can't just—"

"I don't see many other options, Hermione," Harry said quickly, "I know, it's not _ideal._ But it's probably the safest bet we've got, right now, okay?"

She peered at him indignantly for a short while, her lips pressed together in thin disapproval. "Well, we didn't cover other options, did we, Harry? You were _awfully_ _quick_ to just decide, 'let the House elf do the dirty work', weren't you? I, for one, am still open to brainstorming."

"Hermione—"

"I mean, _honestly,_ how would you feel if—"

"Hermione, _please," _Harry looked at once apologetic, and like his head were about to be split in two by a migraine. "It's just a piece of parchment, in an office, somewhere. It's not like I'm asking him to try to rob a Gringotts vault."

"Fine. _Fine." _She held her hands up in surrender, "_Just_ this once. And only if he _wants_ to. But for the record, I'm _not_ okay with it and I'm disappointed you resorted to it so quickly."

Though, she _did_ appreciate him not summoning Kreacher as soon as he'd thought of it, honestly. After the day they'd had, and knowing the things the elf would spout at the sight of her, she really wasn't in the mood.

He grunted something, a grumbling she didn't quite catch, and they turned to continue on. She took small comfort in the fact that she still had his map and cloak, knowing better than to remind him of this, grateful that he would be deprived of the temptation of them.

.&.

Hermione had not voiced her fullest concerns to Harry earlier, not wishing to rile him any further, but the fact was—when she really stopped to think about all this, while laying in her bed—Malfoy was beginning to _surprise_ her.

Ambition. Leadership. Cunning. Resourcefulness. These were the House traits aspired to in Slytherin, and for the most part, Draco Malfoy had never achieved much more than shallow reaches for these things, in her eyes.

The only ambition she'd ever truly seen of him was that of growing up into his father, a reprehensible and sneering aristocrat whose only influences were paid for, rather than earned. The kicker was, it was an almost given thing. Draco; a bust of his father in miniature, with the same haughty smirks, the same blond hair, the same ugly looks flashed down his pointed nose... Draco who, as an only child, stood to inherit _everything—_fortune and worldview, especially.

Draco who had to work for nothing, she thought, but expected everything.

As for leadership, there was a far different word for what he was. Harry Potter was a _leader._ He could direct and help others, he brought people along with him, pulled others up. Made them believe in what they could do, and in turn, they believed in him.

Draco Malfoy was bully. He commanded and _demanded_ of others, he threw other people under the bus, he pushed people down to elevate himself. He controlled other people through threats of force, and the fear of consequences from his influential family. He was far more a _dictator,_ than a leader.

Cunning? _Bumbling,_ was more the word that sprang to mind, for her. Sneaky, perhaps. _Underhanded,_ certainly. And opportunistic, of course... yes, far more _opportunistic,_ than actually cunning.

But was he _resourceful?_

For most of the years she'd had the misfortune of knowing him, Malfoy had always struck her as something of a prankster. To his credit, she supposed, a rather artistic one, at times. She recalled some of his more creative moments and decided that she might grant him that, at least.

Yes. He _could_ be resourceful.

Of course, when he actually _applied_ that creativity, it was usually utterly wasted upon something petty, selfish, or ridiculous. Like those damned paper dragons of his, or those awful buttons.

Overall, throughout most their schooling, she concluded that the most _Slytherin_ thing about Malfoy was, actually, simply that he was so _overtly _in line with the expected Blood Attitudes of the House's founder. He was unpleasant to deal with, like some annoying and small yapping dog with far too much vigour, but generally fairly toothless.

Now, though, as she turned about more recent events in her mind... _Now_ she was beginning to feel like he was actually growing into some _fangs._

Hermione thought back to the first night she'd followed him, how he had seemed to know he was being tailed, and she wondered if he had actually expected to find _Pansy_ stalking him. Whatever could be said of Pansy, she believed that girl really did care about Draco Malfoy. The past weeks of her urging him to eat were proof of that, and Hermione didn't believe now for an instant there was an ulterior motive behind it. Pansy was _worried_ about him.

_**Ever since you got that fucking assignment, Draco, you've just started cutting everybody out! Talking down to us, and acting like you're **_**so**_ **fucking special—**_

Pansy's voice echoed across her memory, shrill, and Hermione let her gaze drift unfocussed over the curtains enclosing her bunk. An assignment... She hadn't really considered that to mean anything, besides school work. That didn't really make sense, though, now that she focussed on it. She remembered, too, the point of Snape mentioning a master to him. Somebody, Harry said, Draco was trying to keep out of his thoughts, with Occlumency.

That certainly explained Pansy's grievances, to a degree. Of course he might try to shut everybody out, in the pursuit of such an art. It came with the territory. Maybe he was even being overly cautious, not letting _anybody in, _if he could help it.

What sort of assignment, she wondered, would somebody like Draco be given by... well... anybody, really? It had to be a reasonable one to expect of a sixteen year old student at Hogwarts, at least, so she doubted it could be _too_ complex. Was there something specific Snape had hidden in his stores, that Draco needed to steal for them, perhaps? Maybe his rummaging for potion ingredients was just a clever cover to what he was _really after, _while he got Pansy out from underfoot at the same time.

Harry did go on quite a lot about Snape. He invented the term 'double-double-crossing' just to describe his feeling about the man, after all... And Hagrid had let slip, himself, that Snape and Dumbledore had not seen eye to eye about recent matters.

She didn't dare let Harry know it, but deep in the back of her mind, she really _was_ starting to wonder if Malfoy had anything to do with these accidents. Perhaps he was a red herring, of sorts, instructed to lure Harry's attentions away. Maybe the 'master' was the one truly behind these terrible things happening.

But Hermione thought again, then, on an adjective she'd ascribed to Malfoy, just before.

_Bumbling. _Which was really just another way of saying _clumsy, _really.

And admittedly, the methods chosen _were_ creative.

_Resourceful, _even.

_**What do you think you're going to be, their fucking Anti-Potter—**_

Hermione sat up in her bed, then, and rummaged under her pillow, feeling the silkiness of the invisible material of Harry's cloak. Gingerly, she felt for the parchment lightly tucked inside, and drew out the map with a gentle smoothing.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good..." she whispered, watching the ink bleed into being. "Where are you, Malfoy?"

Gracefully, his dot appeared, and he was _suspiciously_ far from his bed.

Hermione grumbled as she left the warmth of her own, donning a faint pink dressing gown to stave off the chill and white slippers to protect from the freezing stone. There was little chance she could go back to sleep now, so in small defeat, she threw the cloak over herself once again.

She felt herself silently considering that Harry's paranoia might've been contagious, as she set off to tail the Slytherin of her own accord.

.&.

He was on the seventh floor, when Hermione caught up to him.

He was no more dressed than she was at this time of night. Malfoy stalked the hallways in green and silver pyjamas; the Slytherin crest upon the breast pocket. Oddly barefoot, though perhaps this aided the silence of his steps, she wondered how he wasn't cold enough to shiver. He had his wand in hand, evidently prepared to use it while traversing the corridors this late, and Hermione was somewhat thankful for the ease of the cloak, rather than fussing with Disillusionment charms.

He seemed calmer tonight. Less twitchy. But that did not return his confidence, either. It was almost vampiric, the way he slid quietly through the night—pale and bordering gaunt, with those dark rings about reddened grey eyes—but stayed close to the walls, seeming almost to huddle his way around the corners, and always looking back over his shoulder.

But when they turned into a particular corridor, to be greeted by the blank brick wall and the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, Hermione _knew _what to expect. Malfoy intended on using the Room of Requirement.

It was made even more obvious by the young girl waiting for him, by the wall.

Hermione didn't recognise the girl, but she recalled the rumour Harry mentioned about the pair of first years that had been seen following Malfoy about, lately. Something a bit protective flared up in her, at the thought of this poor girl being bullied out of bed, half awake, to do Malfoy's bidding... evidently being told to be here at this time to meet him, all alone. She was rubbing at her eyes and yawning, and carrying a set of scales—which seemed even stranger than the fact that she was in her robes, evidently having gotten dressed, while Malfoy hadn't bothered.

Sounding exhausted, the girl gave a disgruntled look to the blond as he approached. "I been waitin' here half an hour, Dra—"

"It's not my fault if you can't keep time, Goyle." he snapped irritably.

_**Goyle!? **_Hermione could've gagged.

Of course. So they _were _using Polyjuice potion, after all.

"How long're you gonna be, this time?" Goyle whined, the feminine voice highlighting his dismay. He looked dead on his feet.

"However long it damn well takes," Malfoy pointed his wand at him—her?—commandingly. "And if you fall asleep out here, Goyle, I'll hex your damn eyebrows off. Now shut up and stand there," He tugged at his pyjama top and muttered, "I need to concentrate."

Hermione hurried close, remembering where the doors should roughly be, and dared to stand by the cold brick where she would wait and watch. She cleared her mind as best she could, trying hard not to think too loudly when Malfoy, like clockwork, passed by once, only to turn around, and head back her way for a second pass.

Goyle made a small groaning sound and tilted his head back, mumbling quietly about 'never getting any sleep', but Hermione's gaze followed only Malfoy.

It was serene, almost, watching him calmly pace before the wall, his expression one she'd never actually seen on him before. His features were almost sullen, a contemplative and morose softness that she didn't know could fit upon his pointed face quite so easily. He looked... lonely, somehow, as if he were the very last person on Earth, in mourning.

It was strange to see, when she'd only ever known cruel looks, petulant anger, and cockiness. Stranger still, how much she suddenly felt like she was intruding. As if she were violating some sacred little ritual of his; encroaching unfairly on something that should never be seen.

Under the cloak, still, Hermione waited for Malfoy to complete his lap, and fished out the map in curiosity. True enough, there was Malfoy, and standing in front of her was indeed a little note that read _Goyle._ But when his third turn had passed, and the large doors finally began to materialise, no such appearance made itself known on the parchment. The room's magic, it seemed, overrode that of the map's ability to plot it.

She nodded to herself. That explained Malfoy's supposed absences, then, in the times that Harry couldn't locate his dot.

But there would be time to think on that later, as she tucked the map back into dressing gown pocket, and carefully drew her own wand, sidling close to the middle of the doors. She knew there would only be one shot at this.

As Malfoy came unknowingly towards her, laying pale hand upon handle, the heavy door gave a wonderful shunt as he pulled it open. Fate must've been particularly kind, that night, because he paused to turn one last glare at Goyle in order to repeat himself.

"Do _not_ fall _asleep."_

That was all Hermione needed to slip in through the gap, undetected, before Malfoy followed in after.

The doors vanished as they closed shut behind them, leaving the girlish Goyle to grumble alone.


	4. Before the Fall

4

Before the Fall

.&.

Hermione's nerves were ablaze with small, risky victory when she found herself pressing her back against the other side of the doors, and her lungs burned for the breath she'd held in.

It had been a slim chance that her idea would even work. Really, she'd just been hopeful for a glimpse inside, to know some clues about what version of the room he'd called upon. But when Malfoy had hesitated to chastise Goyle, something in her chest had fluttered for the rare opportunity, and throwing caution to the wind, she'd slipped into the room before him with such narrow timing, it almost made her teeth itch.

He could've bumped into her. He could've heard her feet shuffle. She might've gasped her breath down too fast. For all she knew of the room's magic, and Malfoy's request of it, there may have been something in place to prevent her from _actually getting in._ What if she'd slammed into some sort of barrier in the doorway? Thankfully, if that were possible, Malfoy hadn't yet filled in the mental loophole that prevented her from entry completely. There were lots of little things that could have exposed her, given how unplanned... how _careless _that was. She'd surprised herself, really.

But the risk had paid off. She was inside, and peering out through the silken fabric of Harry's cloak at a vast _mess, _and despite all, she smiled to herself a little. Surely, this accounted for another neat little tick in the mental tally she kept of her own adherence to house traits—file that one in the _daring_ section. Probably her least ticked section, too, so it was additionally satisfying.

The room that welcomed them was packed full of towering stacks of junk, a small labyrinth made of bric-a-brac of all kinds. There were chests overflowing, dusty old tomes, and large pieces of broken furniture loomed all around in haphazard piles, all littered with everything from rusted swords to torn hats and congealing potions left long enough to have gone bad. She physically flinched at the dimly lit sight of an enormous, apparently _stuffed_, troll—honestly, she'd probably never shake that jolt of terror that struck her at the sight of anything even resembling a troll in the slightest.

There was a musty scent to the air, and it felt thick to breathe, claustrophobic and stale given the lack of inflow from anywhere to refresh it. It made her feel queasy, and she tried to breathe through her mouth a little more to ease the smell, careful of her volume still. She imagined how Draco must've gagged upon his first entry here. Of course, he had learned of the room itself the previous year, but the room Dumbledore's Army had manifested for their training was nothing like _this._

Bugger him. Always claiming his sensitive nose was offended by the 'scent of a Mudblood'. She hoped being cooped up with this smell _had_ utterly overpowered that delicate, pointy little nose he loved to look down the length of. Served him right.

Still, she wandered after the blond quietly, curious as he made his way through the impromptu junk yard he'd summoned, comforting herself with the knowledge that it wasn't a full moon tonight and, even if it were, no moonlight could touch him here. Besides which, she hardly thought a room full of perilous old junk was a fitting place for a werewolf to secret themselves away in to avoid transformation, so his use of the room had to be for something other than that. Though, she did wonder what particular need he'd had, in order to be presented such a place as this... full of things that somebody like Malfoy would normally disdain to even touch.

She watched him step carefully over what appeared to be dragon egg shells, which reminded her loosely of Norberta's birth and birthed in her a glimmer of sadness.

Malfoy had inadvertently been present party to that, too, she realised upon reflection. Hidden outside, of course, and spying through the window at them as they were visiting Hagrid. Well, turnabout was fair play, she supposed; she was the one spying on _him_, now.

Well, that was a thought. This was a hidden room, after all. Or rather, a room full of hidden old junk that nobody probably wanted to look at. And, technically speaking, _she was technically a hidden thing herself, _at the moment_._ She fit right in, really. Perhaps the room acknowledged that, despite Malfoy's intentions, when she got inside before him. Actually, on that point, she'd also then likely made it past any loopholes of him being _followed inside; _what if she or Harry had tried to slip in just before the door shut after him? Oh—

Her fretting thoughts were doused, though, as Malfoy paused ahead of her, and Hermione nearly tripped over a book and right into him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice, though she was almost certain her slippers had shown for a moment under the flap of the cloak. She frowned at him instinctively, blaming him entirely for the inconvenience as he stared into a cracked mirror distractedly. Despite herself, the expression softened as Malfoy stepped closer to the glass, peering at himself between missing shards, duplicates of his own sickly pallor staring back at him with a haunted sort of look.

He stared at himself almost mournfully, evidently caught with a little bit of surprise to see himself so dishevelled. He'd not bothered to comb his hair after leaving his bed, having only gotten into it to make a show of sleeping for the others. Gingerly, he took fingertips to his own cheek, pressing at it as if to measure the hollowness his countenance seemed to have now; how angular and stark he looked. His lower lip was dry, and a little cracked. With him this still, Hermione could see little stripes of red on it, as if he'd picked at it and torn fine strips away. She could see the purple shade that coloured the underside of his eyes and see the red rims of his lash line, and the pronounced capillaries in the whites of his eyes. They seemed glassier than a minute ago. Almost imperceptibly, his chin quivered and ticked the corner of his mouth, and steely eyes dropped quickly.

As he pulled away guiltily, his head hung lower, and Hermione couldn't help but guess at what he was thinking. He had always looked neat and tidy. He had always been well put together. He had always looked fit and healthy, never mind his odd paleness for one who spent more than enough time outside and enjoyed flying and Quidditch. His eyes were always sharp and clear, and his robes always as clean as his teeth and hands. He was the sort she imagined would utter a Scourgify at least several times a day. Malfoy had always modelled himself upon the admittedly proud look of his father, almost as if Lucius' bearing was reflected in his son like a tiny mirror, himself.

It was fitting, then, that while his father languished away in Azkaban, Malfoy's countenance suffered in sympathy. From the way he seemed unable to look at himself, Hermione surmised Draco had entertained similar thoughts. Perhaps his own face simply reminded him of the fact, now.

Somewhere inside her, a very small bubble of concern did rise for him, as she trailed after Malfoy once more. Lucius was a truly terrible person—and, well, the apple didn't fall all that far, of course—but she knew how much esteem Draco placed in the man, and seeing him imprisoned in such conditions would naturally take a heavy toll on any devoted son.

Once again, even more strongly, she felt that displaced little lurch inside her that made her stomach tighten, having seen him in a moment she _knew_ was private and fragile. She believed everyone deserved privacy. She really _did_, even Malfoy did. It was a basic human right, and she was encroaching on that. Perhaps justifiably, given the suspicions around him, but that was only to confirm what he was up to, not...

Not to _empathise_ with those little moments where he seemed so small and sad. He might have deserved _privacy_, but he didn't really deserve her pity.

He _had_ it though, somehow. She wasn't sure exactly when he'd managed to make her feel sorry for him, even a little, but Hermione would've been lying to herself if she'd said she had no sympathy for him, at all. She took this more as proof of her own caring nature, however, rather than any sign of Malfoy's worthiness of her concern. It was a _good thing, _that she was able to be a bigger person.

She pulled back a little, so that if Malfoy stopped again she wouldn't run the risk of bumping into him, but he didn't stop until he came before a large cabinet of sorts, not distinguished at all from the other dusty furniture around it. Black laquered and embellished with gold filigree, it boasted double doors and curled handles, standing at least a foot or so taller than the Slytherin himself. He opened it almost lovingly, carefully, and inspected the inside of it patiently. Once cleaned up a touch, Hermione thought it would actually make for quite a lovely statement piece in a dining room, really.

But it struck her _awfully_ familiar. Looking over its grand patterns, she had the most overwhelming sense of deja vu that she had seen this _exact_ cabinet before...

"Harmonia Nectere Passus."

His voice whispered softly but clearly in the heavy quiet of this place, softer than she'd ever heard him speak, and it was only then she realised he had pointed his sleek wand toward the cabinet. She watched in silence as the towering thing give the very slightest of trembles, as if he'd gently roused it from a slumber, and the inky blackness of the thing seemed to shimmer in the dim light.

Yes, she was sure she had seen it—wasn't this the Vanishing Cabinet that used to live on the first floor? The one Fred and George shoved Montague into, last year?

"Harmonia Nectere Passus."

She let the cloak slip away from her, and pointed her own wand at him quickly with a flash of red.

_"Expelliarmus,"_ she said, almost as softly as he had spoken, and watched the wand fly out of his hand. The blond whipped around in some shock, his face a mask of desperate horror as Hermione closed the distance between them quickly.

"Granger—!?"

"Hello, Malfoy." Her wand remained levelled at him in clear threat, and disarmed of his own, it took a moment for the Slytherin's panic to line itself with anger. His chest was heaving now with thicker breathing as a malicious snarl took him, grey eyes flickering warily between her stony expression and the tip of her wand. He noted, too, the invisibility cloak still half draped about her shoulder.

"_How the hell did you get _**in** here?" he hissed almost desperately through his teeth, cringing back a little despite glaring daggers at her.

"I... was following you." She admitted to him, slowly.

"I knew _that_, you filthy idiot!" He barked at her angrily, "I _mean_, how in Merlin's name did you figure out which _room_ I was using?"

She scowled at him and jabbed her wand a little closer, "I _didn't need to_, Malfoy. For your information, I slipped past you just now, while you so _courteously_ held the door for me, actually—" then she blanched a little, her mind catching up.

"_Hold on,"_ brown eyes squinted incredulously, "What do you _mean, _you _**knew**__?"_

"What, you thought I wouldn't hear about your little visit to Knockturn Alley, _Granger_?" the way he spat out her name as if it tasted vile bothered her; it _always_ bothered her, but he took no time to revel in it as he continued sneeringly. "Nosy little _Mudblood_, like you, sniffing about a place like _that_? Sent me a letter, didn't he? Black eyed, bushy haired 'friend' of mine, asking about _my_ reservations?" he snorted, derisive, and the sneer twisted into an ugly, vicious smirk. "You should know better than to go around telling people that I would _ever_ associate with scum, like you. "

She pressed her lips together and felt a small flush of heat rising to her cheeks as she recalled her mistake at Borgin and Burke's... how she'd been tossed out for her flimsy lies. It must have been visible in the way her frown tightened, but Malfoy grew haughtier, finding some composure, and his posture eased mockingly as he pocketed his hands. A silvery blond brow cocked upwards at her and the smirk dissipated back into the unimpressed line of his mouth.

"I knew you'd be along, sooner or later, Granger. We both know, between Wonderboy and his pet Weasel, you're the only one with the brains enough to figure it all out. Being what you are, it's only right for you to feel a little... _threatened._" he said, his voice cooling now.

"Who has the _wand_, Malfoy?" she questioned him flatly, unmoved, and the unpleasantness returned to him with a sneering grimace.

"I think it's about time for you to _disappear_," he said, and Hermione was so transfixed upon the near unstable glint in his eye then, she didn't notice his hand pulling out of pyjama pocket.

Unbeknownst to her, with a mere flick of his thumb, he unleashed a vial of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.

All too quickly the shadows consumed them both, and Hermione felt her heart seize. She cast a stunning spell as the last of his blond hair darted into darkness, and then another. "Lumos!" she shrieked urgently, but it did little to part the unnatural darkness, and before she could conjure up anything else, she felt him grab her hair forcefully from behind.

With surprising strength, his fist twisted to pull, drawing out a pained shriek from her as his other hand caught her casting wrist quickly. The weight of his whole body shunted her forward, her arm twisted painfully to be slammed into something hard, like the bone of his knee, repeatedly in an attempt to knock her wand from her grip. She thrashed and struggled—it was Malfoy, only _Malfoy_, she had not expected him to overpower her this easily. The fist in her hair slammed her head forward and Hermione's brow connected hard with, what she could only assume, was the backing of the large cabinet, and finally her wand was snatched away. She heard it hit the side panel, and the floor beneath, but she stomped had at his feet despite that.

"Get off of me—!" she twisted violently, even against the grip on her hair, and tore her wrist out of his grip finally when her heel found his toes. Her elbow snapped back fast into his ribs to force the air out of him, and Hermione lifted her slippered foot up to kick hard off of the backing of the cabinet, trying to force them both out of it.

"_You **made** me do this, Granger!"_ he rasped to yell, recovering too quickly, too maniacally, for her not to panic. She twisted again in a wild attempt to throw him off, their struggle rocking the cabinet some as she kicked off hard once again to shunt them back. _"It's you or me— **It's not going to be me!"**_

He sounded absolutely _unhinged, _as he started screaming beside her ear, and Hermione felt her heart racing and her eyes burning, feeling his arm snake harshly around her middle to heft her off her feet entirely—a feat she had never expected of him, especially not as tired and skinny as he looked of late.

"Stop _struggling_!"

"Malfoy, _let me go,__"_ she felt herself choke a little on the words, as if her outrage and fear were barely holding back on tears.

**"Get in the fucking cabinet, Granger!"**

In a great surge of effort, he put all of his body weight into a hard slam to pin her crushingly against the wood, and she felt herself wracked with dizzying pain as the insides of her eyelids went white.

The force of his near tackle tipped the equilibrium, however, and slowly, _agonisingly, _the cabinet tipped back. Hermione braced herself for impact, huddling some under the bony press of his hip and knee, and she felt him trying to throw himself off of her too late.

"Wait! _No_—!" he was frantic as he lashed out in horror, now upwards, to keep the doors from slamming shut atop them, but in the impenetrable darkness and the dizzying sensation of it all, he was unsuccessful.

As the cabinet hit the ground with an impossibly loud bang that she felt deep in her chest, and as the doors clicked shut above them, Hermione felt the sturdy wood underneath her suddenly give way to nothingness.

Into the terrifying blackness of the unknown, into possible oblivion even, they _fell._

Malfoy clung to her as she screamed, too terrified make a sound, himself.


	5. Harmonia Nectere Passus

5

Harmonia Nectere Passus

.&.

It was difficult to define the sensations that had taken hold, after the initial drop.

Draco recalled a white sandy beach he had once been taken to, upon a vacation, when he was quite young. Feeling very little worry for the matter of a young Wizard swimming in the ocean, despite Muggle warning signs, his mother had concerned herself primarily with sunning herself on the beach and Draco did not actually remember what his father had been doing... or if he had even been there, in truth. But full of himself even at such a small size, the boy had watched with too little alarm as all the water receded from around his ankles, and a greedy pull sunk him into the sand.

He compared that feeling of surprise, the small twinge of worry he had felt then in his gut, to the moment he had felt the cabinet topple over. The young moment that he had looked up to see a wall of water rushing towards him, a heady wave twice his size, and had turned to run too late toward the shore... that was more like when he felt himself and Hermione begin to plummet.

But the _impact_ of that wave—the force of it sweeping him off his feet just as he heard Narcissa shriek, the way he lost all sense of his place in the world as it tumbled him, and how he for all his magical blood had been totally at the mercy of nature—_that_ was the closest thing he knew to describe what happened after. It wasn't quite like waking up, when he came to. It was more like when he'd finally broken through the surface, pulled from the surf by a flick of his mother's wand, blinded by seawater and scared.

_This wasn't supposed to have happened._

He was stiff and uncomfortable when he got the sense of himself again, crumpled atop the awkward shape of Hermione Granger as he was. His nose tickled from the frizz of her hair, irritated further by the scent of some sort of unnatural, soapy sweetness in it that he instantly disliked. Extracting himself from the bushy locks at once, with a note of disgust, he drew up on his knees. Hastily, he rubbed at his bleared vision, feeling the ache where her hip had been digging into his torso, and blinked deliberately in order to see _anything _beyond blobs of colour and darkness_. _His sight cleared and he stilled as he finally peered around them, that eerie feeling of displacement settling queasy upon him.

Montague wasn't wrong when he described this place as _Limbo._

There existed a fathomless darkness here, at opposite ends of which sat the twinned faces of both cabinets, some fifty feet apart at least. One could imagine that, in full, each cabinet in the real world was only half of the actual object, while its other half was submerged within this realm; a sub-dimension of some sort that would connect the two rather seamlessly, ordinarily.

They sat in the middle of that cold expanse of impenetrable darkness, the only illumination seeming to come—in the form of a soft and almost muted glow—from their own bodies, these distant cabinets, and the splay of surprising objects laying all around them. Grey eyes traversed slowly over the small but scattered collection, some up to twenty feet away from them, with a bemused scowl.

They were ordinary things. A few books, of varying appearances, looked to have been tossed about haphazardly; some were even laying open upon bent pages. A small set of dirty robes, belonging to a Hufflepuff, were rumpled and discarded. A broken bottle over what was now a fairly sticky looking stain. There was a scattered deck of playing cards and what looked to be an upturned chocolate frog that had long since used its last hop.

There was more than that, though nothing more remarkable than the thing before it, until he laid eyes upon a familiar green apple. It was as unchanged as when he held it, with no signs of rot, sitting upon its side. There were more around it. Eight... nine... every apple he'd used in testing, in fact, all still as fresh as when they'd disappeared, and he realised what he was looking at.

This junk was all _lost_ _objects._ These were things that had been tossed carelessly into the broken vanishing cabinet, at least for the few years it had remained upon the first floor, having been rebuilt after Peeves smashed it during Draco's second year. It had only been moved fairly recently, after all, as before the incident with his former captain, nobody had known the vanishing cabinet to be dangerous.

The Slytherin stumbled to his feet as a real panic started to grip him, reaching for his wand only to remember that the Mudblood had disarmed him.

"Fuck," he swore breathlessly, his hands shaking as he ran towards one of the cabinets.

Tearing the doors open, he would be greeted by that innocuously _plain_ wooden backing, and he cursed again harder.

"_Fuck_!" In his desperation, Draco even stepped inside the great thing to run his hands over the inside, as if this were all some cheap trick. To little avail and mounting madness, the blond ran instead across the expanse at a tripping pace, only to repeat the process upon the other cabinet. Numb hands pulled at the handles roughly, slapped hard at the inside of it, and running out of rationality now, he even slammed the doors shut and opened them again, just to be sure.

He stumbled back as the grim reality of all this started to hit him, his hands drifting up to run fingers through his hair. "This isn't happening," he told himself, "This isn't—"

Almost tripping upon the Hufflepuff robes, It became too much. Feeling a great rush of heat fill up his head and warm his spine, Draco's anger took him over wildly, and the blond would let loose an almost guttural growl as he kicked some poor old tome as hard as he could. To his horror, he could see only the faint glow of the thing still as it sailed away, illuminating nothing more than itself in the dark.

_He _was_ stuck here,_ just as lost as all the rest of this... _junk._ Draco Malfoy—forgotten. Just like _that._ Dragged down with the trash he'd tried to dispose of...

"_Granger_," he snarled through clenched teeth, and tore around to offer her a glare ablaze with hate.

Long strides would carry him over to her limp form, and callous, he turned her body over with his foot such that she was lying on her back. Still unconscious, he thought viciously of strangling her to make damn well sure she _paid_ for this... but that dark thought was waylaid by a more practical one.

_Her wand._

He dropped to a knee beside her and began to search around her, tugging and pushing her body with no respect in a frantic bid for her wand. There was a chance it had still been underfoot in the cabinet, when they fell. Surely, if not under her, it had to be _somewhere_ nearby.

Montague had never passed his Apparitions test when he found his way out of this dreadful place; Draco himself had only just _started_ lessons, admittedly having not paid much attention. But he was of much cleaner lineage than Montague. If _he_ could manage it, then Draco _certainly_ could, and he could very likely do it without getting caught in a bloody _toilet pipe—_

There was a sharp sound and a pressure suddenly exploded on one side of his head, as the force toppled him to one side enough he had to put a hand out to catch himself. After that initial moment of shock passed, the pain spread through his jaw, and he became distantly aware of and angry Hermione sitting up from the corner of his starry vision.

He'd woken her, in his roughness. She'd slapped him even harder than the last time this had happened, and he could hardly hear her over the ringing of his ear.

"... dare touch me again, Malfoy!"

He worked his jaw and scowled as she shuffled herself further away. Disoriented from being caught off guard, and turned to hiss at her as he held his cheek. "Is there a way to piss you off that _doesn't_ involve violence?"

Draco swore he saw her hair physically _bristle. _"Violence, Malfoy?!" she practically spluttered with fury, hurrying to get to her feet with the clear intent to hit him again if need be, "_I'm_ not the one _manhandling_ people into—i-into—"

He watched it bloom upon her with an almost malicious satisfaction, as her brown eyes grew wider and her face lost some colour. Like he had done, Hermione turned to look all around her with a growing sense of disquiet. Seeing the terror sink its bite into her, too, very nearly took the sting out of his slapped cheek.

Hermione figured out how fucked they were far more calmly than he did, but with equal gravity, as she numbly turned back towards him with an oddly blank look.

"... Into a vanishing cabinet," she finished weakly, the words barely audible on her breath.

Despite himself, Draco's jaw set tersely. "Into a _vanishing cabinet."_

Hermione glanced around again briefly, trying not to be discouraged, "Well, that's not... that's not _too_ tall an order. Graham Montague escaped by Apparition, last year. I've been preparing for the lessons with a little reading, so—"

"How do _you_ know?" Malfoy sneered. "No, don't tell me... It was probably one of _your_ lot who threw him in."

"Excuse me, _Malfoy_, but I was the one who sent Madam Pomfrey that anonymous letter detailing what actually _happened to him,_ if you must know—not that I named anybody involved—" there was no real need to defend herself in that, but she did thanks to a shred of guilt she still felt over it all. He was right, it was Fred and George to blame, after all. "But if it weren't for _me_, he might not have ever gotten to a point of coherency enough to tell _anyone_. And the cabinet was a danger to the students, of course... As a Prefect, I was duty bound to see it addressed."

"So _you're _the reason they moved it," that fact irritated him even more, and he hauled himself slowly up onto his feet to narrow eyes at her. "Do-good bloody Granger; why am I not surprised?"

"I suppose I am," She crossed her arms at this and offered him a suspicious look. "How exactly _did _you find it in here, Malfoy?"

He smiled at her unpleasantly and held his arms out. "No thanks to _you_, Granger, I wasted a week and two doses of Polyjuice potion thinking that filthy _Squib_ had it." His arms collapsed petulantly against his sides. "In the end, I decided it would be easier just to break something else and see where it went. House elves. I followed them here."

"But how did—"

He gestured roughly towards the general space and started to pace away from her, avoidant. "I hung around the wall for a few days, thinking about where the elves hide things. The room with broken furniture... with the cabinet. It wasn't hard. But what's it to you, anyway?" He threw her a dirty look over his shoulder, and kept pacing with a scoff. "Apparently, _you_ can just slip in, uninvited."

"It's a room of hidden things, Malfoy." She waved her hand to dismiss him, almost rolling her eyes. "I was a hidden thing."

"You think you're just so _clever,"_ he swivelled on his heel to offer her a cold look from the corner of his eye as he simpered mockingly. _"Who has the wand, Granger?"_

It was almost_ sickening, _the dark glee he took—no matter how counter productive—in watching her hand reach for her dressing gown pocket, only for her to realise with paling horror that she'd lost it. Brown eyes darted to his hip, and he saw her face falter to realise she'd disarmed him too... she looked around his feet, all over the place they'd fallen, in a quick little scan. He wore a grim smirk all the while, and by the time her eyes returned to his face, she looked much less sure of herself than she had before.

No. She looked _terrified._

"Unless you think you can Apparate without a _wand_, Granger—and believe me, I would _love_ to see you splinched beyond recognition, if by some miracle you managed it," his smirk faded into a dead stare look of hate, "You are going to _remain _a hidden thing."

Hermione stood still after that for quite some time, looking for the first time rather small and meek. Her head dipped, she was quiet for longer than Draco thought possible, frankly, but he welcomed it. The blond turned his back to her, tugging at a button on his pyjamas nervously as he continued to subtly look for a wand in amidst the junk. He truly wasn't expecting her to talk to him again for at least another twenty minutes or so, but of course, that was far too much to expect.

"... What about you?" she asked softly, and the question made so little sense to him, he turned to snarl at her.

"What _about_ me?"

She never looked up at him, her features almost mournful as she peered at one of the upturned books. "You're stuck here too, Malfoy."

He didn't answer, but he felt his hands clench into fists. Ignoring her, he started towards one of the cabinets, unsure which represented the one Borgin was holding, but taking a chance on it. As he went, he dipped to pick up the apple, and determinedly set it inside.

It was a long shot, but that one was not broken. If he was already inside the 'tunnel' so to speak, maybe he could get out from the working end? It was all he could focus on, if he just _concentrated_ hard enough... a Pureblooded wizard's earnest attempt at wandless magic would surely yield _something._ He gripped both handles and shut the doors, and even let his forehead rest imploringly against the cabinet.

"Harmonia Nectere Passus... Harmonia Nectere Passus... Harmonia Nectere Passus..."

He shifted only enough to pop the door ajar and peek inwards, but seeing the flash of apple green, threw himself back to curse colourfully, kicking at other pieces of junk and uncaring of what Hermione thought as she watched the spectacle.

After a few pensive moments of her glancing back between one cabinet and the next, she seemed to gain a greater understanding of what was going on here, and nodded to herself faintly as if it should've been obvious.

"Harmonia Nectere Passus... Allow a Harmonious Connection... Of course," she seemed to confirm to herself, blinking up at the cabinet he'd just verbally abused. "There's _two_ cabinets. They're _connected. _Objects should be able to pass from one to the other, but the one at Hogwarts got smashed... It's _broken." _She took a few steps and gingerly kicked the Hufflepuff robes aside.

"And that's what you were talking to Borgin about _fixing_," she came closer, and he felt her eyes shift to him again. "Because... that... That's right, there's another cabinet, it's the one at the _shop_—That's what you _reserved_!"

He felt his blood chill as he turned to her slowly, a look of troubled disbelief plastered on his features. She was fucking with him. She had to be.

"... You didn't realise that, _already?_" he intoned slowly, a strange and sinking feeling of confusion settling into his gut. She blinked at him almost innocently, and he felt his gorge rise. His mouth ticked. "But, you—You were watching me. That day at Knockturn Alley, you—"

"What? No. No, I... I mean, yes, I did _watch you, _but I couldn't see what you were pointing at when you made the reservation, that's why I went in _after_ you." She frowned, defensive. "We only heard you talking to Borgin about fixing _something..._ we didn't catch what it was. I had no idea what you'd be up to in the Room of Requirement... or even that you were using it for anything."

"_We_?"

"Harry and Ron were there, too."

"Of course they were; stupid question," He offered airlessly, and felt like his legs were going to give out beneath him. He felt his knees wobble and his head spin, and slowly he lowered to sit himself down, staring out into the endless dark.

She didn't know. She didn't _fucking know._

This was all for nothing. He'd tried to throw her in here, and gotten himself dragged into this hell together with her, for_ **nothing.**_

"Honestly, Malfoy, you were wrong back there; it's _Harry_ who's been watching you like a hawk. The only reason I came out tonight is because I overheard the argument between you and Parkinson, and we figured out you'd probably used Polyjuice to frame her. I wanted confirmation about what you were doing with those ingredients," She had the gall to look at him like he was just a misbehaving child, complete with hands on her hips. "Harry thinks you were the one behind that poisoned mead that almost killed Ron, you know."

He shot her one of the filthiest looks she had ever seen, sardonic. "Potter's afraid I'll be coming back for a second shot at Weasel, is he? So he should be. You and that Blood Traitor both have it coming to you—"

Her lips pursed bitterly. "Oh, do we? What, will you and your 'good friend' _Fenrir Greyback_ visit us next full moon?" She waved her hand smugly. "Well, good luck transforming in here. You were right, Malfoy. I feel so _threatened—_"

"What the fuck are you on about?" He was incensed. Not only did she interrupt him, she interrupted with nonsense.

"You're a _werewolf_," she thrust a finger at him accusingly, and though he should've laughed at her, it really only made him angrier. "I saw you show your arm to Borgin and threaten him with a nasty visit from Greyback," she announced firmly.

He stared at her with a thick mixture of resentment and bemusement, and spoke slowly through his teeth. "Not because I'm not a_ fucking werewolf,_ Granger."

She snorted derisively, flashing a look down her nose at him, "Well, I know you're not a _Death Eater,"_ She said too quickly.

Hermione flinched for how fast the blond was up on his feet, taking an instinctive step back for the belligerent stance he took. He wore an ugly look of rage and offence, one too deeply screwed into place to be from her mere dismissal alone, and the cords stood out on his neck as he screamed at her.

"Why? Because I'm '_just a boy_'? What about your fucking Golden Boy with the scar on his head, he's been the damned _chosen one _since he was a baby! Is there an age limit on fucking destiny, now!?" He started advancing on her, and as livid as he was, he actually managed to strike himself intimidating.

"Malfoy—" Hermione was forced to back step to keep distance, but the blonde kept at her.

"You think I don't have what it takes, you _fucking Mudblood cow? _You think I couldn't kill you if I _wanted_ to?!" then he was stooping to pick up a shard of broken glass from a shattered bottle, snatching it up in threat to wave it at her, "I could cut you to ribbons right now, and _nobody would be able to stop me. _Not Weasley, not Potter; _**Nobody!"**_

That wild glint in his eyes was back, that unstable little something that she couldn't quite identify, and it startled her enough to send her stumbling backwards over something. She landed hard, but instinct took over, and she grabbed at the nearest thing she could to throw it at him and hurled it with adrenaline fuelled force. A rather thick book would collide fairly mercilessly with the Slytherin's face just as he lunged at her, and Hermione turned to sprint away from him quickly as he dropped the glass in shock. It wasn't until she had the barrier of one of the cabinets between them that she'd poke her bushy head out to see the blond bent over double, holding his face and making muffled noises of indignant pain.

He pulled his hand away briefly to see a pool of blood in his palm, and more dripped from his nose and fingers as he gasped in personal horror, "D-did... did you just _break... my_ _fucking_ _**nose**_—?!"

"You ever threaten my life again, Malfoy, I'll break a lot more than that!"

"_**Fuck**_," he spat redness and brought his hand back to his face, his eyes watering and his voice shaken as he settled onto his knees. From there he curled up a little, leaning forward until he was more or less huddled on the ground, holding his face and groaning, with perceptible shudders here and there. She could hear him cursing her as he did so, but she couldn't make out most of it—she was fairly sure she heard several variations of 'mudblood bitch', in there.

"Look. You just... stay over there by that cabinet," she said finally, after listening to him suffer some, "And I'll stay by this one. If you come near my side, you're going to get another book to the face."

Malfoy mumbled something unsavory, now feeling a little sorry for himself, and Hermione took that as agreement enough. But as she watched him fuss, she swore she felt the faintest little shudder in the cabinet beside her, and turned a frown to it curiously. She watched him gingerly tap at his bloodied nose to check if it really was broken, and as he winced, the cabinet reacted again with a small tremble. If she hadn't been pressed up against it, she would never have noticed.

"... Malfoy," she mused, intrigued, "Touch your nose again."

"_Go blow a Hippogriff, Granger,"_ his voice was nasal and wet, and mired in touch of self pity, she thought.

Ignoring him, she turned her attention to the cabinet in full, cautiously coming out to round the front of it in a slow inspection. She opened the door briefly to peer inside, and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. There was certainly nothing that could've made it move. Brown eyes ran over the front, the face of the furniture, and there she found it—a scuff-mark upon the black lacquer, as if she had thrown the book at there, rather than at the Slytherin. Tilting her head, Hermione pressed upon it gently, and this time it was Malfoy that reacted, an audible hiss sounding behind her.

She spun to point her finger at the other side, watching as the blond finally managed to drag himself onto his feet again, though still focused on his nose. "Malfoy, go to your side and put your hand on the cabinet. I need to test something."

"If it's my patience, you're _succeeding_," he spat dryly, holding a now blood-browned green sleeve to his face and scowling.

"Would you just _do_ it?"

He stood there in protest for a short minute, glaring daggers at her. But perhaps in a point of reluctance to deal with her much more, and probably wanting to stay away from her until his nose stopped bleeding at least, the Slytherin did finally turn and drag his feet towards the other cabinet.

She waited until he had set his hand to the side of it, squinting across the way at her darkly, and Hermione took in and held a deep breath to brace herself for what she was about to do. Cringing prematurely, she brought her hand up and, not unlike when she had stuck him, took to her own face with a sharp slap. It stung and flushed her cheek with instant heat, and she expected to hear him laugh or make snide comment, but it never came.

When the Gryffindor opened her eyes again to blink away light tears, Malfoy was staring, wide eyed, at his own shuddering cabinet.

Harmonia Nectere Passus.

_Allow a Harmonious Connection._

She sighed then, and let herself feel a little hopeless.

"... I think we're going to be stuck here for a very, very long time."


End file.
